Harley Benton Traveler-E-Steel

I needed a small guitar to have on a boat... I know, not the best environment for an instrument except for a foghorn…
I didn't have any great expectations (about 70 Euro with a decent pickup and a gig bag!) and for the odd nights entertainment on board anything would do. To my surprise the little ugly duckling was more like a little cute duck! The workmanship, I suppose one still calls it like that in spite of almost all being machine made, was surprisingly good and the little guitar is actually quite good looking and very suitable for small spaces as a travelling guitar! The fretboard is a bit narrow for me but playable, and if don't have shovels for hands like me, it should really be acceptable. Now, of course, don't expect the sound of a jumbo because you'll be disappointed. I found the sound, considering the small corpus, quite adequate. After changing the strings for decent ones the whole experience improved. The neck is straight but the ends of the frets needed to be filed – otherwise they would have made my fingers to minced meat! The bridge had to be lowered, but admittedly, that's a personal matter and many would be happy with setup as is. All in all I would by this little gem again – have tried a well known backpacker guitar (about 300-350 Euro) and feel the difference in price is absolutely wasted… you can get a little holiday for the price difference and bring your new little duckling with you!

I recommend this guitar if you're willing to put in the time and effort to make it play and sound better. It does need a lot of work to make up for the low price.

I really like the tone of this guitar. Of the three HB guitars I've bought, this is the only one I'm keeping.

The strings are high at the nut and bridge. The intonation is really off. The fret ends are sharp. The tuners work well with no slipping. They are firm when turned but smooth. The truss rod is difficult to turn. It wasn't lubricated properly. I hope it doesn't snap in the future. So far it did help to adjust the relief. The binding on the body is perfect. The binding on the neck is good.

The frets aren't level. With high action, that doesn't matter, but when the strings are lowered it will need work.

The tone of this instrument is really good for its size. It doesn't have much bass, but that is OK. The body is tiny and would not be capable of producing bass. The pickup does have a very good sound with separate bass, treble, and volume sliders. It makes the tiny guitar sound just as good as a full size guitar. The battery used is a 9 volt. Which are easy to find.

It comes with a bag. Essentially it is a dust cover. It has a pocket. There is no padding. That is good enough for my room.

I have lots of guitar set up tools. The nut slots will be lowered. The fret ends will be smoothed. The bridge will be altered a bit to lower it and adjust the intonation just a little bit. The only way to get proper intonation with this guitar will be to make a custom saddle that hangs over the bridge to give some strings enough length. The work needed to make this play and sound perfect (for its size) will take lots of time. If you don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on such work or do it yourself (using tools that are worth hundreds of dollars), don't buy this instrument if you want perfection. I have developed the skills to make this a better instrument. The quality of this instrument is reflected in the price. With that said, it is still worth the effort. It came with binding on the front and back of the body AND on the neck. The Martin travel guitar sounds like a box of cereal with strings at twice the price and with no binding. If the bridge were just two milometers farther back, this would be a really good buy.

After the work is done, I can see this becoming my favorite guitar because of its small size. All I need to do is reach across my room and take it out of the bag to begin playing. It is not loud. Which means I won't disturb my roommates in the next room. It is comfortable to hold while sitting reclined and watching TV. Just the act of setting it aside is easy because it is so small. The gig bag has a single long strap on the back that makes it easy to carry over the shoulder. I do that with my ukulele while riding my scooter. This isn't much bigger.

The instrument doesn't say where it was constructed. That disappointed me. It might have come from China. At the time of the order there was no information regarding country of origin. I don't buy things made in China because of all of the human rights violations there.